HUYE - The Minister of Natural Resources, Stanislas Kamanzi, has urged metrological experts to always provide timely information in order to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Kamanzi made the remarks recently at the closure of a two-week regional refresher course for metrological experts at the Centre for Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing at the National University of Rwanda.

"We call upon metrological experts to always disseminate the information on climatologic and environmental related problems for analysis so that it can be used in dealing with these problems,” he urged participants. 

The Minister reminded the experts that the course has come at a critical time when climate change has remained a global challenge, which calls for serious attention. 

According to the trainer, Dr Ben Maathius, an expert from the Netherlands, the course focused on the use of low cost earth observation data in environmental and climate monitoring applications. He suggested that satellite images for environmental and climatologic monitoring be adopted. 

Moses Kamanda, a trainee from Zambia said the course will greatly impact on his work back home.

"This technology will help us forecast weather and give weather information to the public. It will also help us in environmental and agricultural monitoring,” he said.

Sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFFIC), the course was conducted by CGIS-NUR in partnership with International Institute for Geo-Information Sciences and Earth Observations, Netherlands.

It drew metrological experts from Chad, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and host Rwanda.

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